By Janae Hagen GUEST COLUMNIST
In a time when so many people might feel like they aren’t sure their individual voice can really move the needle on a political or social issue, Montana’s once-in-a-decade—and uniquely Montanan—opportunity for a local government review is here as an outlet where your voice can help to shape the way the county government serves its citizens.
In June 2024, ballots in every city and county in the state of Montana asked if taxpayers wanted to fund a local government review. Gallatin and Madison Counties, Bozeman, and West Yellowstone joined a few dozen other cities and counties around the state whose voters all said, “yep, let’s review it!” Then in November 2024, seven commissioners, including myself, were elected as a non-partisan body to conduct the study for Gallatin County.
Since the election, our commission has been busy: we first had to learn the ins-and-outs of the state constitution and the nuances of the scope of the study. Dan Clark and his team at the Montana State University Local Government Center were instrumental in ensuring we knew how to tackle reviewing the structure of the county’s government.
The study is focused on three elements: the power, form and plan of government. Our state’s constitution from 1972 outlines in detail all of the options within those elements. One way to think about it is that if those three elements make up a unique recipe, the Montana constitution outlines all of the ingredients and recipes for how a local government can be structured—and there are enough recipes to have quite the potluck spread of dishes.
Up to this point, our commission has been focused on collecting data to determine if our county’s current recipe is meeting the needs of residents, or if it’s ripe for modification. We’ve been seeking insight from county employees and residents about specific things like whether the county’s election of officials should remain partisan or change to non-partisan and whether certain positions should become hired rather than elected, or require specific professional qualifications.
Another key area for feedback, and a theme we heard loud and clear at a November listening session in Big Sky, has been around representation: whether the current three county commissioners adequately cover the entire county, and whether residents may or may not be better served if the commissioners were elected by districts.
Our commission is still mulling over all of the input gathered from interviews with elected officials and department heads, as well as the large data set from our surveys that MSU’s Social Data department conducted on our behalf of county employees and Gallatin County voters.
This winter, our commission is tasked with determining if we think a different recipe for Gallatin County’s government will address the concerns we’ve heard and outline a clear plan of any potential changes for voters.
The report will be complete this spring, and residents will have all summer to unpack it and learn about what, if anything, will be on the ballot next November. Voters have the final say as to whether anything changes.
Next November, if our current study commission does recommend changes, we have a big voter education hurdle to address: simply due to the current form our county operates in, if any change to the structure is proposed, voters have to agree to change the form first before any other changes take effect.
In the 1996 election, county voters said “nope” to changing the form of government, but overwhelmingly voted “yes” to the specific proposed changes. Because the form didn’t change, none of the other voter-approved changes took effect. Our commission is hopeful that history won’t repeat itself in 2026.
We invite you to attend our public meetings on most Fridays at 9:30 a.m. in the Community Room at the courthouse on West Main Street in Bozeman, or join virtually—the link to join is on the calendar of the main page of gallatin.mt.gov. We are also still actively collecting feedback via our public input form on our website, gallatinlocalgovstudy.com.
This is very much a community process and the outcome will better serve Gallatin County residents when more people get involved.
Janae Hagen is a member of the Gallatin County Study Commission and works remotely as a marketing leader for Petco. She moved from Hong Kong to Bozeman five years ago to be closer to the mountains and her family who live in western North Dakota. When she’s not geeking out about local government, she’s likely fishing with her husband and dog on the Gallatin or Yellowstone; they are expecting their first child in March.
